


Of All the Words of Mice and Men

by BadWolf303



Category: Lie to Me (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-07 17:29:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15912945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadWolf303/pseuds/BadWolf303
Summary: Maybe Foster should keep her promises and take the hesitation and decisions away from him to begin with.





	Of All the Words of Mice and Men

-x-x-x-

_Of all the words of mice and men,_  
_ the saddest are 'It might have been.' _

-x-x-x-

“Cal?”   
  
Oh, he’s been here before. Her voice pulling him into consciousness. Her face, which will be the first thing he sees--the only thing, really--when he opens his eyes.   
  
Which he hasn’t done yet, despite her pleading. “Cal, open your eyes. I’m here.”   
  
That much he knows. She always is, isn’t she? Always here, and there, and wherever he is, no matter if anyone else would have sodded off eons ago.

“Cal.”   
  
He manages to blink his eyes open to that face, that beautiful face, as she hovers over him like she’s done way too many times. He really should stop doing this to her, stop making her wait in a hospital room for him to come to.

He realizes--and knows that she does, too--that one of these days he might actually _not_ come to, that he might actually meet his maker. He also realizes that if that happens and he opens his eyes to heaven (as if he’d actually be allowed in) instead of here, to her, it couldn’t compare. He’d take her face over anything heaven has to offer any day.   
  
Which is a sobering thought, really, even though he’s now in pain as consciousness finds him. Even as he blinks up at that face, that bloody beautiful face, full of fear he can read all over it. “Hi, love.”

Her exhale sounds like relief. Her face still just shows fear. “Hi, Cal.”

  
-x-x-x-

He usually bounces back much faster. Maybe he really _is_ getting old.

“You keep pushing your luck.”   
  
Or maybe it’s that, too.   
  
He’s practically curled into her lap on his sofa, mostly because she’s letting him, but also because it feels really bloody nice, and nothing has really felt all that great since he left the hospital. “I scared you.” If she can state the obvious, he can, too.

“Usually.” Her voice is too soft to be playing the game they usually do, where he’s a shit and she volleys it right back. She’s not playing.

But he’s too tired for games, anyway. “I always think of you first. After, I mean. Right after, when I, well, push my luck...you’re the first thing that always pops into my head. Did you know that, darling?”

“That supposed to make me feel better?” Her fingers, that were scratching soft little patterns through his hair, stop moving. “That I’m the afterthought to your half-assed plans?”   
  
“Not an afterthought.” Never an afterthought. _The_ thought. The only one. He is who he is, and he can’t change that, won’t change that, not for his daughter and certainly not for Foster. And sometimes he wonders what would happen to Em if he didn’t make it through one of these days, wonders how much he’d hurt her by not coming home.

(He wasn’t OK when his mum did it to him, after all.)   
  
But Emily is different. Smart, beautiful, kind. Capable.

Gillian is all those things, too, but still … “The very first thing I think when I realize it’s not entirely going well...is if you’d ever forgive me.”

(He never did manage to forgive his mum, did he?)   
  
“No.” There’s venom in her voice he hears more than most. “I’d never forgive you for leaving me, Cal. You think about _that_ next time.”

He looks at her face just at the right time to see it pale, to see the realization make her nauseous. Because they both know there _will be_ a next time. There always is.

He opens his mouth, but then closes it. Because what can he say, really? _I’ll be more careful next time_ ? That’s a lie, and, really, lying to her is just insulting. “You’re always the first thing I see, too. You’re always there. Prob’ly owe you the same, yeah?”   
  
“It was bad this time.” Well, yeah. He can feel that. He hasn’t looked in a mirror yet, but Gillian’s quite purposefully keeping Emily away at school, so he figures he’s not looking so great. “One of these days…”   
  
She leans closer, and he wonders if she’s doing that thing where the regrets all come to surface. Where she thinks about what almost happened, what could still happen, the same old, same old they’ve been doing for years.

Her eyes flick down to his mouth, and he knows the answer. “Don’t do something you might regret just because you’d have regretted not doing it if I had died.”   
  
She tenses, the grip on his hair tightening to the point where it actually hurts. “Do not say anything remotely close to the word die right now, Cal. You _scared_ me.”

No kidding. He’s been pointing that out all night.

But it’s a reminder that he owes her one. So, maybe she’d have regrets, but he won’t put this one on her, either. It hurts to lean up and bridge the gap, but he does it anyway.

She tastes like stale coffee and heaven. Like all his dreams come true. Also kind of salty, though, and he realizes she’s crying.   
  
“If I let you do that whenever you want,” she whispers when they open their eyes, “will you promise to try and stay alive to enjoy it?”

“Just that?” He’s in pain, but he’s still a little shit. She needs to remember that.   
  
Her smile is tremulous. But it’s beautiful. “I’ll make you a deal. You get better, and you stay that way, and I’ll let you do a whole lot more.” 

-x-x-x-

He declares he’s better probably about a week before he’ll actually be better, but he’s stir crazy, and misses his work, his office, (his) Gillian, since she seems to think she needs to pick up his slack and actually do both their jobs.   
  
So he saunters in, slowly--because his ribs are still shit--gives Anna a wolfish grin as she says with her face, _Dr. Foster is going to kill you_ and he responds with his _Yes, but it’ll be fun, no_ ? And she just shakes her head, because he’s trained her perfectly. 

_Good girl._   
  
He finds Gillian not in her office, but his, sitting at his desk, her head in her hands as she stares at a piece of paper he can tell she’s not reading. He’s out of breath, leaning against the door and bracing an arm around his sore ribs, and it’s a testament of everything he’s ever taken for granted how quickly she’s up and ushering him to sit down, how her fingers scratch at his scalp, as she looks at him with those eyes. “Cal, what are you--”   
  
“Missed you.”

It’s been...different between them. Good different, he thinks. They flirt with intent now, and maybe they haven’t done anything about it besides a few kisses, maybe her promise of _a whole lot more_ has not yet come to pass, but they both seem lighter, he thinks. Mutual desire and more acknowledged, mostly. Accepted? Getting there. Fearful?   
  
Maybe more than he’s willing to admit.

“You won’t get better faster by simply deciding you are.”   
  
“Power of positive thinking, no? Em’s always on me to be more optimistic.”   
  
“You’re sweating.” Okay, so she has a point, and she wins this round. She’s standing behind him, her hands on his neck and shoulders, and he can’t help but lean into the solid warmth of her. “Here...let me...just relax, Cal.” 

Her hands on his shoulders, massaging his eyes closed.

...Is how Torres finds them, of course. The little shit.   
  
“Lightman.” There’s laughter in her voice and joy on her face along with a sparkle of _I knew it, I knew it, I knew it_ . “Welcome back.”   
  
“Who won the pool, then?” He can be a little shit right back. Gillian won’t dare slap him when she knows he’s in more pain than he’s admitting.

“What makes you think you’re interesting enough that we’d care?”   
  
“Oi, I’m still your boss.”   
  
Torres softens, but the smile doesn’t leave her face. “Glad to have you back.”   
  
From behind him, Gillian’s hands squeeze his shoulders as she leans her weight even more into him in a backwards sort of hug and presses her lips soft against his cheek. Right there, with Torres as witness. Everything they try--and fail--to keep the office from seeing, Gill’s just...laying it out there.

And he’s just...letting her.

He couldn’t care less about the smirk on his protégé's face, though, with the warmth of Gillian’s voice against his ear, “I’m glad to have you back, too.”

“Everyone’s so nice. Maybe I should get hurt more often.”

She gives the back of his head a slap for that, and really, he’d expect nothing less.

-x-x-x-

He’s better. He’s been staying that way. And so, she owes him a promise.   
  
He’s too chicken shit to bring it up, though. Too caught up in all the ways he could muck it up, all the ways he’s not sure if she really means he can finally blow apart her shitty little line in the sand between them. Not sure if she really wants him to.

But she made the promise, right? That was her call. Maybe it was because she was scared out of her head, but still. Her promise.   
  
(Her line, though. So which does he listen to?)   
  
He’s such a reckless shit with everything else. With her, he’s all overthinking. All second guessing. All consideration and gentlemen-ly and miserable. He _wants_ to jump head first into this. Has, for the better part of a decade. And maybe that’s why he knows he shouldn’t.   
  
Maybe that’s why he should _anyway._

Maybe Foster should keep her promises and take the hesitation and decisions away from him to begin with.

-x-x-x-

Maybe he shouldn’t have been such a coward.   
  
‘Cause he’s never been here before. Not like this.   
  
Sure, he scares the shit out of her. But she scares the shit out of him, too. He might very well be reckless, but she’s not exactly keeping herself in a plastic bubble, either. (He still has vivid memories of serial rapists dragging her into the night, of troubled teenagers breaking into her home, of her covered in Claire’s blood.)   
  
But not like this. Never like this. He’s the one supposed to be lying in a hospital bed. She’s the one supposed to be drinking stale hospital coffee and pacing the floor.

“Dad?”

His daughter’s voice startles him, because he let’s her see more than most, but he usually keeps this level of emotion off his face in front of _everyone_ . “You shouldn’t be here, Em--”   
  
“Oh my God.” It’s the horror in Emily’s voice that takes away any remaining breath in his lungs. Because she’s looking at Gillian, at one third of the people who raised her, at the woman he....anyway, she’s looking at her and having that reaction and he’s trying to tell himself it’s not as bad as it looks, but it _is_. It is, and it should be him in that hospital bed.

“Dad…” And now Emily is looking at him, and seeing the things on his face he’s too worn and scared shitless to hide, things he’d never let anyone see (but probably should start. Probably should have let Gill see it before...before…) “Dad, Gillian, she…”

“Doctors say she just needs to wake up now.” He loves his daughter, he does. But he can’t protect her from this while he’s trying to protect himself, and he doesn’t know how to be Emily’s dad while being Gillian’s...well, he can’t define it but he knows it’s more than partner, more than best friend...just more than. He can’t be both right now. He doesn’t know how to bloody well navigate it, not without Gillian there by his side to kick his arse into figuring it out. 

“Anyway, you shouldn’t be in here.”   
  
“I came looking for you,” his sweet, sweet daughter says, a whole bunch of things in her voice that Gillian could decipher long before she let Cal in on the science. His brilliant girl. Both of them. “But Gillian...Dad, she’s like…she’s my... _Dad_ , who would want to stab _Gillian_?”

Someone he’ll make pay. Someone who he’d kill with his bare hands, if the man wasn’t already in custody. Someone who has Cal closing and locking the doors of his office building until he can gut the security system and throw all the money they don’t have (won’t Foster love that?) into securing it _stronger_ and _better_ so this doesn’t bloody well happen again.

He wraps an arm around Emily’s shoulders. It’s meant to comfort her, but he feels his weight lean in on her, feels himself shake even as he tries his damnedest to be sturdy. “She just needs to wake up, now,” he says again. “It’s up to her now, but, love, you really shouldn’t be in here.”

“She’s family. I had to be here.”

_You tell her that when she wakes up, my brilliant, beautiful, empathetic daughter, you. You tell her that so I can see the dazzling smile she’ll give you for it._

She’s family. And it’s damn well time they both told her so. It’s damn well time he lives up to the unspoken promises he’s been trying to make her for over a decade, along with the spoken one she made him not that long ago.   
  
With his hand gripping his daughter’s tight, he leans in, his lips against Gillian’s soft ear: “You get better, Gill, you hear me? You get better, and you bloody well stay that way, and I will give you every damn thing we said we’d give, yeah? No more games. I’m all in. So wake the bloody hell up already.”

-x-x-x-  


It happens at the first glimpse of red raw scars on her stomach, when her t-shirt clings to the sweater she’s pulling over her head and rises high up her skin.

His hand moves without permission, though maybe it’s just sick and tired of waiting and he really can’t blame it. The heat from her is mesmerizing, and she seems caught up in it, too, as his fingers wipe along marred flesh and they both just stare at the movement.

Until she shifts, and her own hands reach for the still-bruised area of his ribcage.

“We’re quite a pair, ain’t we?” It’s all chipped accent, and he knows she can hear past the lightness he’s trying to inject into it, but really, he’s not trying all that hard to hide the real words.

“Are we?” Her own voice is soft whispers, and it’s more that he can read the honest affection and confusion and (im)patience on her face that stops him dead.

(No, not _dead_ . None of that. Not right now. Don’t _go_ there, Lightman.)   
  
“If I were a lesser man, I’d think you put us through all that just to get out of a promise you made.” He doesn't know why he’s still trying to joke, he just can’t stop. She hears through it, anyway, though. “Gettin’ yourself thrown into a coma just to--”   
  
“Stop.” Her hands are firm on his wrists. His hand is still on those scars.   
  
“Can’t seem to,” he admits, his eyes on the red raised flesh of her pale skin. “Can’t seem to stop, don’t know how to start. This all feels a little cliché, darling.”   
  
She tilts her head, he knows, trying to reach his gaze. “Look at me, Cal.”

He usually can’t stop that, either, can’t stop looking at her, stop studying her, but right now he just needs to study those scars. Study how he failed her. Study how he almost let the door she opened for him when he was in a hospital bed close tight when she was in hers.

“Cal.”   
  
“I’ve stayed better, love. You owe me a promise.”   
  
“Did it really take me nearly dying for you to say that?”   
  
She crowds into his space. He lets her. His eyes finally meet hers, dazzling blue. “Fair’s fair, darling. Took me nearly dying for you to offer, I recall.”

“I’ll be way more impressed if you stay healthy.”   
  
“So you said. ‘A whole lot more’ you said.”

Her hands are still holding his wrists, and he takes advantage and tugs her closer. She stumbles into his chest, and they both cringe for a moment over bruised and scarred and damaged bodies. He takes his hands from hers to soothe circles on her lower back. “Gill.”  
  
“Don’t do something just because you’d regret not having doing it if I died. _You_ said that. Remember?”

She’s stalling now.   
  
They both are.   
  
They’re so fucking predictable.

“Really?” He squeezes her sides, exhaling like a deflating balloon as he slides his hands to her hips. “Gill, _really_?”

She huffs. Actually huffs, with a grouchy little pout and he’s actually surprised she’s not stomping her foot, too. And it’s...adorable, really. Fucking hell. “Cal, why do I always have to be the one to--”   
  
To act? To make that first move? Because it’s him, now, he’s the one shutting her up by pressing his lips against hers.

And if he recalls, he bit the bullet the first time, too.   
  
And, really, every time…

“I want more, Cal,” she says, still close enough that her lips move soft against his own, and his heart damn near stops, it does. He opens his mouth to say, well, something smug, but her hand is quick to cover it. “I don’t mean...I mean, I do, want...yes. _Yes_ . But I mean I want more...I want everything, Cal. I want to stop being in this place where we need to almost die before either of us does anything. _That’s_ not healthy.”

“I agree. You’re right.”

“I just think that…wait, what?”   
  
She clearly wasn’t expecting him to so readily concede. And maybe that’s on him, even if it ticks his pride a bit that she looks so stunned.

He reaches a hand up to turn her hair behind her ear, letting his fingers rub the soft skin there. “Need your hearing checked, love?” he says, as he moves to fiddle with her earlobe, and she reaches up to hold his wrist. “That won’t be good for business.”   
  
She sways against him, and it’s a damn near miracle he didn’t die, she didn’t die, he’s not actually dying now as he feels the weight of her lean into him. “Cal.”   
  
“Said I agree, Gillian.” He makes sure to say it clear, and strong, and let her hear all of it. “So why are we still standing here?”   
  
He leans in for a kiss, and she pulls her head back. It’s not a rejection, not really, as her eyes search his. And he lets her look, really look at them. “Say it again,” she says. “Tell me again.” 

“You owe me a promise, Foster. And I’m ready to collect.”

-x-x-x-

 

And collect he does. With interest.

Because now he’s hard inside her, and though she’s fighting to keep them open, she’s all smiles in those dazzling blue eyes looking up at him.

She makes him do most of the work, and honestly, he owes her that much, and laughs into the damp heated space where her neck meets her shoulder as she playfully slaps his ass into moving faster.

His bruises have faded even if his ribs burn a bit as he moves, and she’s been self consciously using her arms to cover scars on her stomach, and maybe they’ll have traces of those moments always in memories of white hospital sheets, but he’s not gonna let her hide. She kept her promise, here they are, it’s time he made some promises of his own.

He pulls her arms to wrap around his tensed shoulders, grazes his fingers along her ribcage, down to those scars, wondering if this beautiful brilliant woman feels anything less than those things now she’s got them. “You’ll forget they’re there,” he whispers along her collarbone, fingers still tracing raised skin.

She shakes her head, angles herself to take him deeper, and he moans into her sweat-salted throat.

Can’t let her distract him, though. Not from this.   
  
He lifts his head, and her eyes are closed. “Look at me, Gill.”

She sounds near petulant when she says, “You want to read me.”   
  
“Right now, darling, I want you to read _me_.”

Her eyes shine as they pop open. He’s surprised her, even as he’s laid bare and inside her. Even as her breath comes stuttered out of her lungs, and he can’t seem to get enough air, either. She’s looking at him, and he’s letting her, and he knows he needs to also say the words, knows that he’s all faces and she’s all voice (soft, sweet, wonderful voice) but he knows once he does she _will see_ and _will hear_ everything.   
  
Everything.   
  
All the honesty he has in him.

“Foster.” He shakes his head, letting himself chuckle at the pubescent crack in his voice. “Gill.” 

She sees it before he says it, her eyes suddenly shining wet and giving him that dazzling smile he loves, that’s all teeth and cheekbones and nose crinkles.

He laughs again, groans as she uses her limbs to pull him in closer. “Say it, Lightman.” There’s a challenge in her voice and laughter on her face, and he loves her. He does.

She knows it. He knows it.   
  
And that’s the truth, it is.   
  
“I love you, Gillian.”   
  
She does something with her hips, shifts them _just so_ , and if she has a response for him, well, he’s too busy coming for her to notice it.

-x-x-x-

It’s nearly six months later he takes a punch to the face.

(Okay, okay. Five months.)   
  
(And it’s also a kick to the chest. Two kicks. And a few more punches.)   
  
(Few more than that.)   
  
He tries to offer her a smile when she appears, out of breath, at the his hospital room doorway, (God, did she run here?) hair wild, face reading all those things he’s seen reflected every time he lands himself here. Though maybe more now. Though also maybe less.

The fear is stronger, that’s true. But there’s something missing, too.   
  
“Your _face_ .”   
  
“Oi, not exactly the tone you want the love o’ your life to take when discussing your features.” He reaches a wobbly arm out for her, beckoning her to his side. “Ain’t you supposed to tell me how gorgeous you find me to make me feel better or somethin’?”   
  
“You look like Quasimodo, Cal.”   
  
“Fat lot of help you are.”   
  
“Or the Elephant Man.”

“C’mere. I’m sorry, right? I’m sayin’ it now.” He waves his arm aimlessly in the air, hoping she comes and takes it to give it purpose. He just wants to feel her close, and she knows it. She’s scared and mad, though, and _he_ knows it. Staying at the threshold is her way of punishing him.

She’s shit at being the disciplinarian though. Got too big of a heart, that one. Used to make puppy dog faces at him when he grounded Emily all, _she made a mistake, Cal, lighten up_.

She’s crossing the room in two quick strides, taking his hand up to her cheek and crowding the side of his hospital bed. He rubs his face into her stomach, even though it stings and makes him groan a little. _Christ_ , she’s soft and warm.

And the realization suddenly slams right into him. “Regret.”

“What?”

“Every time I...sorry, love, I don’t mean for it to be so often...but every time we end up here, and you come and look at me with those eyes, I can see it all over your face,” he says, knuckles stroking against her cheekbones. “But not now. It’s gone now.”

Her face softens, and she carefully wipes her fingers across his brow, down his bruised and puffed-up cheeks and possibly-broken nose. “I love you, Cal. I get to love you. There’s nothing to regret now. More to lose, but nothing to regret."

It’s a bit too serious a moment for him, as her eyes fill with concerned-and-loving tears. “Speak f’yourself, darling. I’d regret not ever getting a shag at the office.”

“I take it all back, you’re impossible, I regret everything.”

“Christ, Gill, you’re beautiful.” He wins her over with the truth, and she leans into him as much as she can while still being so bloody careful, his heart could explode. Best they’re already in a hospital. “I’ll get better quick. Promise. And I’ll do my level best to stay that way.”

She brushes a kiss against his hairline, letting her lips linger and wipe along his brow as if she doesn’t want to stop touching him yet. “I have nothing more to promise you to do so. You’ve gotten it all already.”

“Not the aforementioned shag in the office.”   
  
He expects her to shove at him, or the very least tell him off with laughter and rolled eyes. Instead, she gives him a look that damn near rivals the leers he gives her on a daily basis. “You make it a year without a hospital stay, and maybe I’ll consider it.”   
  
“Aye, aye.” He’s laughing, and it hurts a little, but he doesn’t give a stuff. “Now that’s a challenge, that is.”   
  
He starts to shift over in the bed, and her eyes widen a little horrified that he’s moving, but before she can protest he’s patting the now-empty side of the bed, his eyes begging her to take the invitation.

She hesitates though, and it makes him beg out loud, so she can hear it: “Please, Gill. I’m askin’ here.”   
  
“I don’t want to hurt you. I didn’t see your chart--I don’t even know _where_ you’re hurt.”   
  
He scared her--she’s worried. He nearly forgot that bit, too distracted by loving on her and letting her love and dote on him while he’s stuck here. But she’s all soft curves and gentleness and concern and care and all of the things that he knows wouldn’t hurt him a bit even if she jumped into the bed to straddle him.

(Now, _that’s_ a thought.)   
  
“You won’t hurt me, Gill. Adrenaline’s fading and I’m coming down hard. Just wanna have you close, okay?”

Her eyes sweep down his body that’s covered by the starchy-white sheets as if she’s weighing the potential for his pain, and he reaches for her hands and tugs. She stumbles forward, but catches herself from falling into him even as she concedes and climbs into the bed.

He tucks her up against him, her head snugged under his chin, and he can feel the slight tremble of her body as she shakes off the fear of the phone call from and sprint to the hospital. “I’m alright, love.”

“I know.” She sniffs, wipes her face into his chest. “Me, too.”   
  
She’s not, not really. But she will be, and he will be. Because they’ve been here before--but not quite like this. Not when he can so freely love her, and she can so freely love him, and neither one of them are consumed by the “what ifs” of that afternoon.

“A year, eh?” He challenges into her hair as he kisses her head.

“One year, and I won’t even wear underwear to work that day.”   
  
He laughs as she buries her face more because she’s blushing, and it’s maybe the only type of challenge that could actually keep him trying. She wouldn’t change him--she knows better than to try--but she knows just how to get him to try and change _himself_ , at least.

“Now _that_ is a deal.” 


End file.
